Interdisciplinary Team to Compete in Global Health Competition

Students from Kellogg, Feinberg, McCormick and Weinberg will compete at Emory Global Health Case Competition

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Northwestern University is sending its first team to compete in Emory University's Global Health Case Competition. The interdisciplinary team of five students will travel to Atlanta later this month where they will develop a proposed solution to a fictional global health scenario.

The 2012 team is being sponsored by Feinberg School of Medicine’s Center for Global Health and the school’s vice dean for education and the Weinberg School of Arts and Sciences’ Office of International Program Development. The competition requires team members to have diverse areas of study and emphasizes the importance of collaboration and synergy to solve global issues.

“It is very exciting for me to be working with medical students and business students,” Weinberg senior Christopher Miller said. “I have so much to learn from them, and it's great to hear about different perspectives on managing global health challenges. Each team member brings a unique set of strengths to the table, which should allow us to approach the case from a variety of angles.”

Miller hopes to learn from fellow competitors as well.

“For the competition, I hope that our team will do its best to represent Northwestern,” Miller said. “We've been given a great opportunity to show other schools what Northwestern stands for. I'm also excited to meet with and learn from other attendees.”

Last year’s competition forced teams to develop a feasible and sustainable plan for the new Director of Programming for the East Africa Regional Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The director was faced with significant budget cuts as well as a growing refugee crisis caused by civil disorder near the borders of Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda.